BOOK REVIEW: DEAR EMMIE BLUE • LIA LOUIS

The Detail

Publisher: Trapeze
Publication Date: August 2020
Pages: 322

At sixteen, Emmie Blue stood in the fields of her school and released a red balloon into the sky. Attached was her name, her email address…and a secret she desperately wanted to be free of. Weeks later, on a beach in France, Lucas Moreau discovered the balloon and immediately emailed the attached addressed, sparking an intense friendship between the two teens.

Now, fourteen years later, Emmie is hiding the fact that she’s desperately in love with Lucas. She has pinned all her hopes on him and waits patiently for him to finally admit that she’s the one for him. So dedicated to her love for Lucas, Emmie has all but neglected her life outside of this relationship—she’s given up the search for her absentee father, no longer tries to build bridges with her distant mother, and lives as a lodger to an old lady she barely knows after being laid off from her job. And when Lucas tells Emmie he has a big question to ask her, she’s convinced this is the moment he’ll reveal his feelings for her. But nothing in life ever quite goes as planned, does it?

Emmie Blue is about to learn everything she thinks she knows about life (and love) is just that: what she thinks she knows. Is there such thing as meant to be? Or is it true when they say that life is what happens when you are busy making other plans? A story filled with heart and humor

THE SUNDAY FEELING’S REVIEW

The more chick lit/romance I discover, the more I am starting to really fall back in love with the genre.

The plot of Dear Emmie Blue drew me in, a book about friendship, loneliness, family, love, heartbreak and so much more, but it was the characters that kept me reading as they really were pure gold. Lucas was an absolute joy to read about, and Emmie felt like an old friend I wanted to both hangout with and protect. The friendship created between them was one everyone dreams of as a 16 year old, and the romance in the book was even more so.

I feel like we can all connect with Emmie and Lucas in one way or another, even if our lives seem very different on the outside. Growing up can be incredibly hard and I think Lia really captured the essence of life and how we all have our own battles to fight.

I was genuinely gutted when I finished this, and am looking for recommendations based off of it so please do comment below if you know of any!

I hadn’t read anything by Lia Louis before Dear Emmie Blue (I’ve heard her debut is very different but just as good). I am planning to read it at some point, but I’m super excited for her upcoming release Eight Perfect Hours as it sounds right up my street!